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Saturday, February 19th, 2011
Managed to snatch that nice active region 1158 between clouds before it drifted over the limb. Wonder if it will last long enough to head round the back and reappear. ARs 1161 and 1162 are an interesting looking pair too. Easy to see in properly filtered bins!
AR1158
AR 1161 and 1162
More AR1158
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
This is AR1158 two days after the last shot.
By the way, wasn’ t that a great talk by Darren Baskill last night. Never knew x-ray astronomy could be explained so well. You could say he made the subject transparent. Sorry!!
AR 1158
A Valentine’s Day sunspot
Monday, February 14th, 2011
Four active regions on the sun today. This one’s a cracker!
A nice complex region
The sun at last
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
The sun put in an appearance at long last! Took this prominence with my PST and DMK 21. on the 30th Jan Also tried colourizing the image.
NanoSail-D
Monday, January 24th, 2011
After a glitch, NASA’s NanoSail-D solar sail has unfurled. It will be visible from the UK at least until 31 Jan on this set of passes. Check www.heavens-above.com for pass details.
January meeting
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
What an enjoyable January meeting. Bob Mizon came up trumps with his ‘Oddities of the Solar System’ which was hugely enjoyed by all. Thanks Bob.
Good to see so many new faces too. A warm welcome to you all and we hope to see you again next month! Darren Baskill’s talk is going to be ‘X-treme Astronomy’. Should be fascinating. By then we should have done our Observation Evening with Redstart School. If not, it will mean that we’ve had cloudy skies for a month. Unthinkable!
Ron
CADAS is on Facebook
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
I wasn’t able to make it to this evening’s meeting unfortunately but I have used my time wisely (possibly) and set up CADAS on Facebook! We are truly modern and happening now.
You can see the page here. Unfortunately the URL isn’t very snappy.
If you’re on Facebook then please ‘like’ the CADAS Facebook page to help raise our profile. All posts from here will soon be reposted there too (automatically)!
Stargazing Live in Crewkerne
Monday, January 17th, 2011
We held our second ‘Stargazing Live’ event at St. Bartholomew’s Church Hall, on Wednesday January 12th . Due to heavy and extensive cloud cover there was no chance of observing, but about 30 people still turned up. The last request for a place was received by Mike H about 20 minutes before kick off!
The evening consisted of a presentation by Arthur Davis called ‘From here to infinity’ followed by refreshments. (Thanks Zena and Adrian.) A Stellarium sky tour by Andrew Jones followed and the evening ended with a slide show of some images by Ron Westmaas. Feedback was very positive, with many expressions of thanks. It was good to see that a number of children had come to the evening. All in all a very successful event.
Stargazing Live event at Shapwick Heath
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Bill Reed, Andrew Jones, Mike Egan and I were at the Natural England Avalon Marshes Centre on Sunday 9th January for our ‘Tour of the winter sky’ event.
Enquiries for places were coming in just hours before it was due to start. We had set a limit of 40 in order to fit into the classroom we were using but in the end accepted an extra 10 on the understanding that they might have to ‘stand at the back’. Everyone turned up! It was a tight squeeze but there was a good atmosphere.
Despite some thin cloud at times, we took a naked eye ‘orientation’ sky tour of constellations and followed up with naked eye, binocular and telescope views of the moon, Jupiter, M 31, 45, 42 the double cluster in Perseus and other objects, until dew and frost put an end to the fun. We then headed for the warm classroom and refreshments, followed by a virtual planetarium show courtesy of Andrew and Stellarium. After that, Bill and I showed some of our images.
From the many emails received afterwards, it was obviously a very successful evening with many people asking us to run another stargazing event.
Thanks go to Simon Clarke, Manager of the Natural England, Shapwick Heath Reserve for allowing us to use their excellent facilities and for making us so welcome.
BBC Stargazing Live
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
The Crewkerne and District Astronomical Society will be hosting two events as part of the BBC2 Stargazing Live programmes.
Event 1. ‘A tour of the winter skies’.
This is a chance to explore the winter skies with local astronomers and their telescopes. If sky conditions are unfavourable, there will be a presentation on astronomy with slides.
Date Sunday 9th January. Time 19:00. Venue The Avalon Marshes Centre (near Shapwick Reserve), Shapwick Road, Westhay, Glastonbury BA6 9TT (map)
Registration is required. Contact: ron@qubit.myzen.co.uk or 01278 722518
Event 2 ‘An introduction to stargazing’
There will be an illustrated talk on astronomy followed by a chance to observe the night sky weather permitting. Suitable from age 8. No equipment or previous experience necessary. Warm clothing essential for observing. Booking essential. Under 18 to be accompanied by an adult. Adults £1 Children free. Use nearby public car park.
Date Wednesday 12 January. Time 19:30-21:00. Venue St Bartholomew’s Church Hall, Abbey Street, Crewkerne TA18 7HY (map)
Registration required. Contact mikekholland@yahoo.co.uk or 07833 478419.